Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

First off, happy birthday, Member for Grayndler! Investment in infrastructure is necessary if we are to address the urgent need for improved productivity growth in this country. Without this investment, slower growth and missed economic development opportunities are inevitable. This is a position held by the RBA governor, Philip Lowe, who recently said that without high-quality infrastructure 'our ability to compete and to be as productive as we can be' is impaired. Mr Lowe also said:

Good transport infrastructure … opens up opportunities for people and opens markets.

Unfortunately, this is a message which the Premier of Western Australia, Mr Barnett, and the Prime Minister have chosen not to listen to. Instead of looking to what is best for the state, Mr Barnett has racked up record debt and is looking to sell state assets to pay for his mismanagement. The WA Liberal-National government inherited a debt of $3.5 billion and a $2 billion budget surplus from Labor 8½ years ago. Where has that gone? Today, state debt in WA is spiralling towards $40 billion and there is a $4 billion budget deficit. Mr Barnett and Prime Minister Turnbull have stubbornly stuck to dumb, hastily conceived and unplanned projects rather than admit they have made a mistake.

And the Perth Freight Link is a massive mistake, one of gargantuan proportions, with Senate estimates this week confirming this white elephant really is a road to nowhere. Well, it is certainly not a road to its intended destination, with its missing three-kilometre link to the Fremantle port. Infrastructure Australia says in this report I have here that the Perth Freight Link seeks to address the problem of 'suboptimal access to Fremantle port'. Suboptimal? I'll say! The current Perth Freight Link that fails to link freight to the port is the most suboptimal project you could ever imagine. It is a disaster for Western Australia.

On the other hand, WA Labor leader Mark McGowan and his team have real plans to invest in people, the state and its future. Mark McGowan as the WA Labor leader will invest in WA and has plans to create new jobs across many industries, such as investing in tourism and promoting WA as one of the world's great tourist destinations. He will create Defence West to utilise existing infrastructure, and improve it, and facilities and skilled workers already in place in WA when it comes to realising defence projects that mean a lot to my electorate of Brand and also to my colleague's seat of Fremantle.

Instead of wasting more than a billion dollars on the Perth Freight Link, Labor knows the importance of investing in quality, productivity-boosting infrastructure and will do so with. METRONET. METRONET will connect Perth's suburbs. It will address the grinding congestion on our roads. It will transport people to jobs and training opportunities. Someone really should tell the Liberal government about the benefits of public transport, because, if we look at their record, since 2008 only eight kilometres of rail have been built in Perth. They have no plan for public transport in Perth and will not invest in the public transport that the city and the metropolitan area desperately need.

In threatening to withhold $1.2 billion of infrastructure funding to Western Australia should WA Labor win the upcoming election, on the basis of Labor infrastructure promises the Prime Minster has told Western Australians that his government will not invest in linking the Mandurah line—which takes the people of my electorate of Brand either north to the city or south to Mandurah—to the Thornlie line, which again opens up employment opportunities. The WA government is also telling the people of Western Australia that it will not invest in building a new train station at Karnup, another much-needed infrastructure project to enable people living in the fast-growing southern suburbs of Brand to get to work without facing gridlock on an already congested freeway.

Already in progress is this Liberal government's failure to invest in the communications infrastructure that would lift thousands of residents in Baldivis out of the nightmare of the communications black hole they find themselves in. There are no internet ports to connect to. There is no infrastructure in place. There is no funding to address the mobile black spot problem that we have. Small business owners, people working from home and students are all left without the means to engage in a 21st century digital economy in the southern suburbs of metropolitan Perth. It is a disgrace. This government's failure to invest in the infrastructure of the future is deplorable.

This government is not listening, and in doing so it is failing Australians. It is failing them by not investing in improving productivity, failing them by not providing the public transport they need to get to work and study, and failing them by not investing in the infrastructure needed to take us forward.

We all know, and we have heard a lot about it, that Western Australian people are going to an election the week after next. They have a clear choice between a tired, unproductive and, frankly, grumpy government and a vibrant, hardworking, unified Western Australian Labor team that will bring a fresh approach to that great state. They have a clear choice on infrastructure: the flawed Roe 8 Perth Freight Link, with its missing link, or productivity-boosting infrastructure, such as METRONET and the development of the outer harbour at Kwinana.

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